


Slow Path

by absofruitlynot



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: 1x07, F/M, Gen, Hello friends first fic for 300 years and first fic posted here, just a lil thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 21:19:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10862301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absofruitlynot/pseuds/absofruitlynot
Summary: There is a moment, between all of their respective brands of panicked practicality, when something absolutely, almost naively ridiculous occurs to him.(Set during Stranded)





	Slow Path

There is a moment, between all of their respective brands of panicked practicality, when something absolutely, almost naively ridiculous occurs to him.

It comes to him in a flash-- somewhere between Lucy's eyes darting around as she murmurs about scarlet fever and Rufus' nearly sarcastic quips about forced bondage-- a flash of what it would mean if they survived these almost comical odds but never made it back.

He imagines, briefly, the three of them escaping east, settling surreptitiously outside Philadelphia, and _living_. The rest of their lives-- presumably shorter than they would have been-- knowing what the next two centuries bring but knowing they will die long, long before anyone who will ever miss them is born.

His obstinate patriotism flares as he realizes that he'd get to fight and risk his life for his country in the most pure, original way. Independence. Nothing morally ambiguous, nothing as cynical as he would feel sometimes as he tugged on his boots in that damned desert; Liberty or Death, he muses, wouldn't that be nice.

He'd marry her, of course, and he won't deny that settles his hammering heart a little. There's affection between them already-- between the three of them-- and there could be an arrangement that would protect all of them and probably only make them mildly uncomfortable. They'd farm, he guesses, his knowledge of 18th century career and lifestyle choices not wildly detailed, but that could suit them.

He tries to pull himself back to the present (in a sense) but not before the word _children_ quietly echoes through his jumbled thoughts (something it hasn't done for a while now) and the implications of all of this suddenly expand. Images hurtle through his mind of downy dark brown hair and wide blue eyes, of her kissing tiny, delicate foreheads, of her smiling up from beneath him with blown out pupils, of them finding some modicum of happiness despite that aching pain just below the surface---

He wrenches back from this because he is a soldier, they all are now, and that is not what they are fighting for.

They make it back but this moment never quite leaves him; it emerges sometimes as he's falling asleep or when he sees her knuckles whiten as they fall through time again. They're still just travelers, thankfully, but _future_ is a word whose meaning becomes more jumbled and fraught by the day.

He protects them, and their futures.

**Author's Note:**

> Boutta have a large amount of time on my hands so I thought I'd wade my way back into writing fic, and this is the result. I like these guys a lot.


End file.
